


Toothpicks Made of Femurs

by InfinityIllusion



Series: All the Things You Need (Like a Toothpick to the Brain) [1]
Category: Bleach, D.Gray-man
Genre: Akuma!Ichigo, Gen, I wrote this on my phone sorry for errors, Ichigo is never normal but nice try there Earl, I’m late I’m late for a very important date, M/M, Pre-Slash, Temporary character death pre-story, UraIchi Prompt #1, Vaguely historically accurate details, tw: for semi-grafic torture scene at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 17:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15320490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: Kurosaki Ichigo is dead.Kurosaki Ichigo is a magically living skeleton in the body of a dead man, thanks to his sisters and an evil marshmallow elf.Why is this his life?(Prompt: "If I wanted some chloroform, where would I get it?  Hypothetically.”)





	Toothpicks Made of Femurs

**Author's Note:**

> Argh I’m late! But I at least made it in time for the collection!
> 
> I’ve been unpacking after moving in to my college apartment, and dealing with a lot of drama as a fallout of that, and I didn’t actually have an idea of what to write for the longest time.
> 
> (This was also supposed to be a long ass multi chap fic, but it’s probably a good thing it’s not because haha, I don’t need more WIPs)
> 
> (Also, hope you like this Ren!)
> 
> Edited: 07/20/18 Formating and typo/autocorrects corrected

* * *

“Wake up...<3”

“Wake up <3...”

“ICHI-NII!”

Ichigo snaps awake, body tense and wondering what the hell his little sisters are doing here.

Er, where ever 'here' is, because this certainly isn’t the alley he’d died in — even if he can’t actually see for shit under this visor he’s wearing.  There are couple of colored bloobs in front of him, and he can make out their general shape, but that’s about all.  This place doesn’t smell like the alley, though...it smells like a graveyard.

“ _Ichi-nii_ ,” Karin whispers.

Well, best way to figure out exactly why he’s back in graveyard and not, well, elsewhere.

“Karin, what’re you doing here?” Ichigo croaks.

“Ichi-nii, you’re — you’re really back!”

That answers the question of where Yuzu is.  “Yeah, I’m really back.  Apparently?”

“Hehehehehehehehe. <3 I’m so glad you’re awake, my pretty new Akuma! <3”

The fuck?

“Who the hell are you?”

“Noooooooo. </3 My cute baby Akima doesn’t know who I _am_!  </3”

And for some reason that thing is the brightest light in the graveyard.  And also the grossest.

“Millennial Earl, sir, they’re just a bunch of kids, _lero_.”

“You’re right — I need the perfect... ** _introduction_**.”  And then his face grows massive teeth and his eyes reverse color — whites black, eyes fully white, apart from a black, slit pupil.

That’s not ominous, especially since that’s the first thing Ichigo has been able to see clear as day since he woke up.

So Ichigo shoots forward as the weirdo cackles again and makes to grab his sisters and run.  He’s _back_ , now.  He can protect them again.

Any weirdness from how he can back can be solved another day.  Preferably when there isn’t a marshmallow weirdo in a tux and top hat that can bring people back from the dead.

Ichigo starts to hiss, “Lets go,” but marshmallow elf cuts him off.

“ **Come now, my precious baby Akuma!** **< 3 Choose which one you’d like to kill! <3   You need some clothes for you to accomplish my orders <3**”

And there’s a spike of pure pain through Ichigo’s skull, like someone took an ice pick and decided to hammer it in through the top of his skull, while his head was simultaneously trapped in a vice.  It’s really very tempting to collapse. And even more tempting to listen and give in, because then the pain _pain **painPAIN**_ would stop.

But.

“Why.  The.  _Fuck-ing. Hell._ ” Ichigo pants, as the pain around and through his head worsens, “Would.  I.  Kill.  My. Sisters.  You. Fucker.”

And so he reaches up, and while he doesn’t have all the fingers he really thought he had (two weird knife-like things are, uh, different), they still work well enough to tear off the stupid visor and kinda chuck it at the marshmallow man.

Who has such a perfect, perfect expression of surprise, Ichigo almost wishes someone was there to paint it, in its full glory.

(Maybe he’ll sketch it later.  He certainly won’t be forgetting that face, ever.)

But after the initial split second of appreciation, that perfect moment of surprise is better used to grab his sisters, arms hooked around them and knife fingers carefully tangled in their clothing, and run.

(Running is also weird because his legs are weird and his feet are weird and it looks like he’s _actually a skeleton_ right now, but he’s trying not to think about it.)

Ichigo runs, and runs, and runs, and runs and his sisters a quiet, so very quiet, and he looses himself in alleys he’d haunted as a child.

And then the pressure weakens, and Ichigo feels am safe enough to whisper, “Where have you been staying?”

Yuzu mumbles something about an orphanage in the north of town, so Ichigo takes them west, since they’re currently in the southern area of the amount of liquor bottles is anything to go by.

He settles them in in an abandoned building, both of them curled up on either side, and resting their heads on each of his thigh (bones), and he waits (he tries not to loose himself in the too many ways tonight could have gone so wrong).

~IiI~

The girls wake up sometime around noon, according to the city clock tower.

They have some money they’d scavenged and some that they’d stollen from the vault in the home just after Ichigo had died, but they hadn’t found his stash of money, yet, so they should have some travel funds.

But Ichigo can’t go out in the city as a malformed skeleton (seriously, marshmallow couldn't even get a _skeleton_ right, but he could bring people back regardless.  What the heck.), and he’s not small enough to hide in a bag, and no he can’t shrink, they determine, though he tried. Many times.

“I guess the magic ends with you coming back,” Karin mutters.

Both of them are so much quieter than they had when he’d died.

“But we’re glad you’re back!” Yuzu whispers, fierce and brazen in the face of breaking the laws of nature.

“Yeah,” Karin agrees with a decisive nod.

~IiI~

The thing is, though, that you can’t do much as a walking talking skeleton.  In fact, he can’t even convince a friend to tell him where he hid his money.  ...Which in hindsight, Ichigo probably should’ve just let one of the girls talk to Chad, since he’s even met them, but.  Oops.

In all seriousness, though, Ichigo can’t work, really, because he can’t pass as human.  Which means he can’t protect his sisters from hunger, or the cold.

Sure, he made some money surprising muggers, and, sure, he made some success in terrifying the underworld in Munich, when they passed through, but neither of those are really sustainable _jobs_.

People change their habits, they get warier, and it’s one thing to have superstitions and rumors about vigilante skeletons and not being able to hide that one is a vigilante skeleton.

But it passes the rest of fall, and gets them funds for winter.

Which means that Ichigo has something resembling free time again, since the nights are longer and he can’t feel the cold.  So being a skeleton is nice, in that regard.  It also means that he can just eat other weird creatures and not take up money eating normal food, so that's more going towards Karin and Yuzu.

“Marshmallow man was talking about me...wearing one of you after he ordered me to kill one of you,” Ichigo says slowly, skull expressing as much disgust as a skull can.

“Do you think this mean I could, _ugh_ , wear someone else’s body — it’s not like there aren’t a lot of dead people right now.”

~IiI~

Kisuke Urahara, mad scientist and Shinigami (or, one of the few living remnants of that particular branch of the Black Order), has spent the last several days running the data gathered from when he attacked the Earl during a Creation.

Sure, a few hundred of his altered Akuma died, but they knew they’re time was coming anyways, bodies slowly decaying from resisting the Earl’s inbuilt command to kill, to consume, to evolve.

They went willingly, like others before them.

Sometimes knowing that helps Kisuke sleep at night.

All the other nights he’s cursed to see the souls he’s damned in his quest to right the wrong facilitates by his own Creation.

And if, in this one case, he was able to see what would happen to a Human, previously touched by an Akuma in the womb, and between a Quincy and a Shinigami?

Something that might be able to wrench the control of his Creation from the Earl?

Well, at least Shiba Isshin could never say his debt went unpaid.

~IiI~

An excerpt from the _Historialie Memoriae_ :

 

_Years ago, the Millennium Earl set up the most basic prototype of his Ark in the Mediterranean, in what he believed to be the center of the earth.  In theory, this would have granted the arc prototype access to leylines, rivers and streams of power running beneath the surface and thus could act as both a power source and guide for the technological wonder._

_But something stopped him.  This was a time before the 14th Noah was revealed, before all of the Noah of that generation had awakened, when the only thing between the Earl and success were Humans and Innocence._

_Within the Humans, there was a group that committed the most horrible offense — they discovered how to hijack Akuma, and take their powers as their own._

_In so doing, they were able to sneak beneath the Earl’s protections, and obliterate a large portion of the arc._

_The Earl was forced to retreat, and fled east._

_Those Humans and Innocence Wielders from that part of the world retreated to their homes, and strengthened their defenses as best they were able.  Some succeeded.  Others failed._

_Those in the West celebrated their victory._

_And those Humans who had dealt the mortal blow to the Earl’s Ark?_

_Well, they, too, retreated, forming an enclave deep in the German woods._

_Neither human nor Akuma, the powers they gained bred true in their children, their children’s children.  But they never lost their ability to pass to the discerning eye as human._

_And so, eventually, some left — escaped — the enclave they had created in the depth of a German forest, ventured forth, and claimed the title Quincy._

~Helveska, Exorcist of the England branch, Black Order.

~IiI~

It’s a long, awkward time of finding bodies, figuring out how to choose the right kinds of bodies, discovering how best to enter the bodies (and that was purely by mistake — Ichigo _never again_ wanted to stumble across another Creation, even if he was able to fight his way out after the Earl left), a back drop to working their way across Europe and over to England because, according to the word on the street, that’s the best and closest place to ask questions and not get killed on sight.  They're supposed to be welcoming, there.

It’s a long, awkward, embarrassing, and trying time of dodging the police and sleeping in abandoned nooks and crannies.

It’s a long while afterwards of pretending to be the ill brother/sister/father/aunt to his sisters as they spin stories and weave sorry tales of how they ended up here and there, using fake names and sometimes reusing the first names and last names in different combinations.  Ichigo makes a point to always keep something German about his name.  Karin and Yuzu are less concerned, but if Ichigo can’t use his real name, then he’ll keep to something close, and German for his mother.

(He’s not throwing the name she chose for him away, but some days it seems like he is, and is only encouraging his sister to do similarly.  He tries not to think she'd be disappointed in him.)

It’s nearly ten years since Ichigo died, and was subsequently Created.

So it’s with a song in his slowly beating, stolen heart, that he goes to work and helps at an Apothecary, handing out orders.

His hands may shake too much for him to measure, better suited to transforming into some amalgamation of talons and claws, but flexible, usable, in a way he hadn’t expected to regain.

And there’s a smile on his face, when his eyes catch on the most ridiculous top hat he’s seen — somehow, instead of being an _actual_ black top hat, the man wearing it has opted for green and white stripes running lengthwise up and down the entire thing.  Yuzu would love it, and Ichigo is also pretty sure that Karin would love to wear it, if only just to say she did it once.  His eyes travel down to the man’s shaded grey eyes, and down to his day or two old stubble, until he recognizes the flowers in the man’s suit pocket as he hands him his order.  Recognizes, and remembers.

(" _Pasque Flower, 'seek nothing' for there is nothing in the shadows but death....a Thistle, "vengeance and independence," make your own way, and invent any path necessary to follow through..."_ Isshin Kurosaki may have not been the best father, but he did leave Ichigo that bit of knowledge before disappear to parts unknown.  Before dying.)

~IiI~

Really, Kisuke just needed some things from the Apothecary — a little poppy, a little Belladona, a smidge of Anconite, and maybe some Lupine, but they might not have it at this one; it’s not the most common thing, and honestly he would just ask Tessai to grow some but he’s just had this break through and —.

There’s an Akuma at the Apothecary.

Which isn’t something Kisuke predicted, but is well within his skill set to manage.  He’ll need to corral the other patrons and the workers, and while he doesn’t have quite enough in him to bribe them silent, he doesn’t have the most interesting chemical mix that might work on anyone left.  Or on everyone.

(Being a mad scientist isn’t cheap, after all, but that’s a very distant thought, by a very distant part of Kisuke’s brain.)

The only thing is, that soul might be tied to the body, but it’s the wrong kind of chain.  

Instead of iron, they’re chains of some dark jet material, and seem to come from the soul, not the body, as if the soul _wants_ to be tethered to this plane....

The soul also happens to not be a withering, wailing, thing — and that’s something Kisuke has never been able to achieve, not even in trying to reverse what happened to Shinji, Sarugaki, and the others...

(It was a horrible day for the Shinigami when Aizen tried for God.  It was a apocalyptic day when he failed and the Earl stepped forward.)

The Pharmacist hands Kisuke’s completed order (it turns out they did have lupine!) in bits and parts to the Akuma, who slowly places them in a bag, and finally hands over the entire package.

“Here’s your order, sir,” comes a quiet voice that doesn’t match the soul’s hair, or eyes, or actual demeanor.

“Thank you.”  Kisuke isn’t sure if the soul is afraid, but it’s certainly wary — Kisuke would even say worried, with maybe a hint of fear, but that’s not possible crime what he’s seen and experimented — even if the person it’s wearing doesn’t show any sign of such thing.

That’s the thing about Akuma.  The souls remember how to express emotions, but souls aren’t brains, aren’t connected to the muscles, even if they take the brain's place in the Earl’s Creations.

So if you can see the souls...

“And, what is your name?  You seem like you ought to be resting, not working, with a pallor like that.”

Akuma also don’t quite recall how the human body functions either, which speeds up the continued decay of the corpse.

This one, though, looks to be functioning much better than it should be — of course, the lower level Akuma have some kind of preservation aspect to them, possibly coating the skeletal frame, or otherwise inherent to them in a way the science Kisuke knows and breathes sees as _magic_.

They don’t call it that, but it’s true.

Add on that this Akuma is certainly the one that he distrusted the Creation of — the one touched in the womb, of two strong parents with powers unexplainable except as miracles?

Kisuke really has to find out more.

“My name is Sigmond, sir.  And I promise you, I’m quite well.”

Kisuke hums, considering.  “I make house calls — oh, I’m a physician!  Well, of a sort.”

“I’m sure,” the Akuma mutters quietly, before declining again.

But with Benihime as his Innocence, it’s so very easy to whip out a thread and take advantage of the location.  It’s an Apothecary and it’s so, so easy to cause a mix of chemicals and make the Akuma break down coughing.

“Now, see?  I’m quite sure you’re not well!  Let me ah, escort you home or—?”

“Take me to your practice you damn witch doctor,” the Akuma wheezes after it’s forcibly escorted out the door.  “And don’t you dare charge me since _you’re insisting_.”

“I would never!” Kisuke denies, beaming.

The soul is unimpressed, but also looks...reluctantly amused.

But they’re close enough to an alley that Kisuke feels safe enough to duck into and seal the entrance with threads that spring from his cane -- Benihime is ever so attentive in times of battle.

Half a heart beat later, he attacks.

But, as he’s learned to do since he killed his best friend a second time, since the Shinigami fell, and Japan succumbed to the Earl, since he’s started experimenting in Akuma in earnest — he talks while he stabs and whips and slashes.

“What are you doing here, Akuma?  There’s no Innocence in this city.”

“Woah, _woah_ , what the fuck!” The Akuma says, hands raised and dodging as best it can in the body it's occupying.  “I didn’t do _anything_! I didn’t even kill this guy — he had his neck broken at some construction job a couple of days ago and a few towns over!”

That’s definitely the strangest reaction Kisuke has engendered from an Akuma to date.

It’s also not attacking him...nor does it pop away and say something like, “Just kidding, insert cackles here, description of maiming and death there, shooting of missiles, etc, etc.”

So he binds it — maybe it allows him to bind it, and then steps forward to have a...paradoxically coherent conversation with an Akuma.

~IiI~

It might not be an ideal partnership -- it wasn't meant to be, and it hasn't grown to be one -- but it’s something more than just an alliance of convenience, no matter what Kisuke tells Tessai and himself.

He knows that, when he actually looks forward to meeting Ichigo (he finally got his real name a few clandestine meetings ago — it really doesn’t help that even as strange an Akuma as Ichigo is, even he can’t fight the body’s natural decay for too long, and being a physician isn’t the worst past time when you’re a scientist) — when, even caught up in his experiments, looking forward to seeing Ichigo.  It’s just.  More than an alliance.  That’s all.

But maybe that “something more” is best shown when Ichigo wanders into his workshop in the dead of night, failing to provoke a reaction from Kisuke besides him acknowledging the door is opened and shut in quick succession, and says, “So, if I wanted some chloroform, where would I get it? Hypothetically.”

“Mm, top shelf in the back. Should be labeled,” Kisuke mutters back, continuing his data entry.

And then realizes what just happened.

“Wait —“

Ichigo cuts him off, waving a very bruised hand that may or may not have a few chunks of flesh missing from if, “Oh, I found this guy hanging around — had weird powers and stigmata in his head, so I beat him up.  But he’s kinda noisy and has these really annoying butterfly things, and I heard that this stuff’ll knock him out.  Thought you’d have some, but I also thought I should ask.”  Ichigo shrugs.

“And you just.  Came in here.”

“Well, yeah.  Your friend let me in here after giving me a bunch of cookies to take to the girls — apparently Yuzu has been trading recipes for fabric and sewing materials?  Did you know that?”

“I knew he was in contact with a woman named Yuzu...”

“But not that it was my sister, okay.”

Ichigo hums a little, distractedly flicking his fingers against empty beakers, before grimacing.

“Well, that makes me feel a lot bette about the whole thing.  I thought she’d been trading something else for fabric.”

Kisuke grimaces slightly in return.  From what little he’s heard about young Miss Yuzu, and from what he knows about Ichigo, it would kill him to think that his sister was selling herself to support them.  Which would explain the number of bodies he’d gone through in the past _week_ when usually he went through less than that number in a _month_.

“Yes, well.  What’s the man say his name is?”

Abruptly sheepish, Ichigo scratches his head.  “Well, um.  Nathan?  Nathanial? Norman?  Something like that.  Also something about 'pleasure,' and how I’m supposed to listen to him? But I’m not sure what that has to do with the void butterfly things — those were a pain to deal with.“

“The Noah of Pleasure?”

“Yeah, him!  Probably.”

Kisuke frowns.  The Noah haven’t been seen for at least a decade, and if one went around to recruit Ichigo? One of the strongest Akuma Kisuke has encountered (if only because Ichigo tends to not only fight for his meals, but also prey on other, high level Akuma)?

This doesn’t bode well for Exorcists or for the world.

“So I left Karin with a couple metal pipes and told her to hit him in the head every five minutes or so, until I got back with the chloroform, so then we could dose him, and bring him to that wear house.”

Kisuke blinks. “Karin is...your sister?  And, why is she doing that?”  " _Why didn’t you just kill him?"_  Kisuke wants to ask, but he knows Ichigo.

Ichigo rolls his eyes hard enough the body actually does it, too.  “My other sister, yes.  She’s also still alive.  And she’s hitting him because we figure we should torture him for information, and you probably have way more experience.”

Kisuke nearly splutters.  Seriously, how does Ichigo know this?  He was an assassin — one of the best!  That means things like not leaving traces, and having an excellent poker face and mask!

Which is failing him at the moment because Ichigo glances at his face and shrugs.

“Well, you’ve...kinda got that aura, I guess?  You know, the one of really heavy guilt?  Also, if we’re wrong, you’re also a mad scientist.  I think torture comes with the territory, even if it might be accidental.”

Kisuke huffs.  If only Yoruichi-san could see him now...

“Fine.  You’re not wrong, let me does him so you don’t kill him by accident, and if we go to that warehouse the screams will echo.  We’re doing it here.”

“Here?”

With exaggerated drama, Kisuke puts a hand to his chest and questions, “Why, Ichigo, did you think you could guess all my secrets and secret rooms?  I’ll have you know there’s many, many more!”

“Why am I not surprised,” Ichigo replies, but he’s grinning, so it’s not all bad.

~IiI~

They leave Kisuke’s extended basement, and briskly make their way to the abandoned house Karin is presumably keeping the Noah of Pleasure occupied within.

Which, no, never mind, Kisuke _really_ needs to rethink this who thing if that’s how his brain decides to phrase things.

Perhaps he should have slept last night.  Or the night before.  Or the night before that...

Well, torture while sleep deprived won’t be a new state for him.  It might actually give him better results.

And he’ll actually get to use those _clamps_!  He wasn’t going to, but now they’ll have a use and Tessai can’t complain about him wasting money.

“I think I can hear her now,” Ichigo remarks, out of the blue.

“Hm?”

Ichigo cocks his head, “Yep, she just hit him again.  We should get there before she does it again.”

“You can hear that?”

Ichigo blinks.  “Well, yeah.  Can’t you?”

“No, I can’t.” More data to add to Ichigo’s folder.  Akuma aren't known to have a better sense of hearing than humans or Exorcists, but if they do, it might explain what kind of signal the Earl uses to call them to him -- instead of magic, it could be a specific pitch that pulls to something in their make up, and forces them to go to him, or it could destabilize them....

“Anyways, we should be there before she knocks his head again.  Do you want to carry him or should I?”

Right.  Noah of Pleasure.  Kisuke is very, very out of practice if this is his current state of mind after a measly four days without sleep.  “Well...it’s about midnight, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re going to need to replace that body anyways?”

Ichigo sighs, “ _Yeah_.”

“Then you can carry him!”

Ichigo groans.

~IiI~

Kisuke stares down at the unconscious Noah, pondering the best way to set this up.

Perhaps, yes, he’s dressed like a rouge gentleman, so Kisuke can start off politely.

“Good evening, Mr. Noah,” Kisuke murmurs.  “I’m afraid we’ll have to deny your request of my friend.  Instead, why don’t you tell us what you know?”

The Noah would spit at him, if he weren’t gagged, but Ichigo learned the hard way about those Void Butterflies and how he summons them, so his fingers are individually bound at the moment, and the Noah will remain gagged until Kisuke has, ah, broken him in, so to speak.

“So we’ll start with...”

Kisuke brings the hammer down on one of his thumbs.

“You hands.”

And the Noah of Pleasure, shivers at the grin under the garish top hat.

* * *

~~Alright, hopefully this posts --.--;  (Edits will come late, I promise.)~~

I think I got all the typos and formatting issues (barring the emoji :/)!  Thanks for your patience!

Comments, kudos, and concrit welcome!

~Fins

**Author's Note:**

> Fun facts two of which never made it into the story:
> 
> 1) so the War of Austrian Succession started in 1740 and lasted about 7-8 years. This is relevant, because I was guesstimating that the whole prototype ark war, in this fic, took place around that time, and the rest of the (western) world was more worried about stuff going on sliiiightly north-ish, allowing the various flavors of Exorcists, Finders, and people with odd powers fighting Akuma, to do so with a little less subtlety than usual. As well as take advantage of the chaos in the region as a smoke screen.
> 
> 2) I can’t figure out canonically when the Earl takes over Japan, but for my ease I’m saying he started doing so at the beginning of the Tokugawa Period, paralleling the historical isolation. But, well, people have a way of getting info out, and the Earl didn’t have complete control until say, 1800 or so. Maybe 1780. Idk.
> 
> 3) Chloroform was apparently actually discovered as a thing that’ll knock you out in 1847, have a link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9487785/


End file.
